


in time

by speaksdaggers



Category: All Elite Wrestling, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Kayfabe Compliant, M/M, Slow Burn, and summaries, it's bad idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23624374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speaksdaggers/pseuds/speaksdaggers
Relationships: Ibushi Kota/Kenny Omega
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

kenny feels like he's going to be sick.   
he looks at the man in front of him. broken. begging. brows furrowed, mouth downturned. he pleads, voice breaking, eyes watering, limbs shaking. kenny winces, looks away, catches his breath. he tastes the metallic tinge of blood in his mouth.   
he feels the pressure surrounding the two. everyone's looking, watching. waiting. the gazes never mattered to him until now. a confrontation that should've been held privately. he bites his tongue inside his mouth. he couldn't blame anyone but himself for pushing it to this point.   
he stares at anywhere but in the other man's general direction; the ring, his shoes, the floor. the commotion of the crowd fizzles into nothingness in his mind. there's only ringing in his ears.   
then, it happens. he feels the hands on his shoulder and the force of himself spinning around. they lock eyes and it's instant. they grasp each other tightly. desperately. all the air leaves his lungs and he sighs and cries and tries to hold on tighter, as if he let go that ibushi would no longer be there. the reaction of the crowd is blocked out of his mind. it's just them. together, again. finally.


	2. Chapter 2

it's almost like having to get to know someone all over again, kenny discovers.  
he knows him better than anyone else ever has, or ever will. but it doesn't feel like that anymore. it's been too long. too many harsh years. things have changed, more things than kenny thought would've. he guesses he was being naïve to assume things would be the exact same as they were two years ago, but he'd always hoped it'd be easy like that. he knew it never would be.  
it's been two weeks. he sleeps on the couch in ibushi's apartment. it's small, and he never fits right, and there's always a knot in his neck, but he never complains. in fact, he never really says anything. it's not that he doesn't want to talk to ibushi, because he does, more than anything. but the words never find their way up his throat, and if they do, they never sit well in his mouth. so he swallows, biting down on the sentences he has yet to form.  
he wakes up early this morning. his socked feet hit the floor quietly. he stands, stretches. the sun is rising, streaming through the blinds. he breathes. it feels tight in his chest. he lets it go, eyes closed. he runs his hands through matted curls. he steps softly through the living room, down the hall, aiming for the bathroom. he stops next to the slightly open door of ibushi's room. he looks in before he can even think about it.  
he looks peaceful. blissfully unaware. kenny wishes he always had that face. he knows it doesn't look like that anymore because of him. he looks away, walks to the bathroom.  
it all feels wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

it's late in the evening. the sun's setting, kenny watches from the window. he feels bad that he's basically taken over the living room, ibushi always walking straight past to the kitchen then back to his room. he never stops, never looks over, never reacts. it weighs heavy in kenny's mind. they couldn't play 'ignore each other until one of us finally decides to say something' forever, and it was getting unbearable to sit in silence.   
"hey," he clears his throat. tries to make it matter. ibushi stops in the kitchen.   
"do you need something?" he says. it's flat. level. he's not facing him. kenny almost recoils at how robotic it sounds.   
"no." he can't think of anything else that would make sense. almost as quickly as he appeared, ibushi's gone again, the door swiftly clicking shut behind him.   
ibushi had to want him there. if he didn't he would've said otherwise. kenny knows they're equally lost in their own thoughts of what to say. what to do next.  
he finds himself outside of ibushi's room. he goes to grab the handle. too straightforward to just barge in? he pulls his hand away. definitely. instead, he lightly taps his knuckles to the wood a few times.   
"come in." he hears from the other side. it's soft, quiet. surprised.   
he clenches and unclenches his fist. his hand finds its way to the doorknob. he turns, pushes, and steps in.   
it's no different than the rest of the house, but it feels different. like it's wrong to be in there. in some way, it kind of is. kenny finds himself awkwardly standing in the front of the room. ibushi nods his head to the end of the bed opposite of where he's sitting. kenny blinks, nods, sits. he stares at the floor.   
he feels ibushi's fingers brush across his forearm and he raises his head to look at him. there's a saddened smile on ibushi's face. his eyes reflect a change.   
"i don't know what to-"   
"i know," ibushi stops him. "i don't either."   
"i just hate the silence." kenny sighs, composes himself, keeps his gaze on ibushi.   
ibushi turns his head, retracts his hand. kenny's brows furrow at the loss of contact until ibushi moves his entire body closer, inching across the bed. his head rests against kenny's shoulder.   
"i don't like you when you're quiet." he breathes.   
kenny finds his lips tugging into a small smile.


	4. Chapter 4

existing in the same space has gotten... easier. slight tension and definite awkwardness still lingers in the air, but at least there's some familiarity.  
their conversations were usually short, flat. casual. things slowly felt decent, though. less like two strangers living together. now, they could at least be in the same room together. ibushi sat on the couch, legs pulled up to his chest, huddled into the cushion on the right. kenny sat on the cushion to the left, legs sprawled out long in front of him. the middle cushion was the unspoken, but understood, barrier between the two. there's no reason to cross it, so they don't. in his hands, kenny fumbles with a controller. he breathes deeply through his nose, blankly stares forward, aggressively pushes buttons. it's almost a somewhat comfortable silence. the video game music and sound effects echo through the room. ibushi shifts, glances over. he thinks kenny might send his thumb right through the entire thing if he used any more force. the mental image caused him to laugh lightly, covering his mouth with his hand. kenny's gaze leaves the screen, meets his face instead. his thumb brushes over the controller, the pause menu flashing across the screen.  
"what?" there's a slightly amused tone in his voice, a small curl of his lips.  
"nothing," ibushi waves his hand dismissively. "just thinking."  
"of?"  
"how you're about to break that controller." he responds jokingly, stifles the wide smile threatening his lips.  
and kenny only laughs in response, short and sweet and genuine. their eyes meet when the silence resumes. ibushi breaks the stare first, eyes training on his fidgeting hands instead, and the moments gone. kenny slumps a bit, sinks further into the couch. both hands on the controller again, the game resumes.  
at least there's some familiarity.


	5. Chapter 5

it's been a rough day. kenny can see it in ibushi's face, hear it in the way sighs. he doesn't know if it's right of him to ask. on one hand, he could be invading ibushi's personal space. on the other, he could be a total asshole for not trying. he turns the idea in his mind, runs his tongue along the roof of his mouth as if the words were stuck to it.   
ibushi sits at the kitchen table, poking limply at the food on his plate, aimlessly scrolling through twitter on his phone. kenny sits himself on the couch in a way that isn't too obvious he's looking. he tugs a curl, ponders for a minute.   
"hey" he starts. it sounds like a question and he mentally groans at himself.  
ibushi's head snaps up from the plate in front of him.   
"yeah?"   
"everything okay?"   
there's no verbal response, just a nodding of his head. an attempt to end the conversation there. and kenny lets it end there. maybe it's better left unsaid. at least they both know he tried.   
the chair screeches as it's pushed back against the floor, ibushi scraping nearly an entire plate of food into the trash. he drops the plate in the sink rather harshly, and begins to retreat back to his room. without thinking, kenny stands, reaches for his wrist. ibushi looks back and meets equally confused eyes.   
"are you sure?" kenny asks, concern in his words, tenderness in his touch.   
and maybe that touch is what does it, what breaks the floodgates in ibushi's eyes. the tears spring and slip freely down tanned cheeks. at this point, kenny really doesn't know what to do. his hand still loosely holding his wrist, his thumb begins to circle the soft skin under it. ibushi only wipes his eyes with his other hand. their gazes meet. he pulls his wrist away. kenny thinks that it's over, that ibushi will turn to his room, leave him there standing in the living room.   
but he doesn't. he steps in, one foot after the other, closer to kenny. his head finds it's way to kenny's shoulder, rests gently against it. his arms loop around kenny's torso tightly, fingers gripping at the fabric of his shirt. kenny only freezes for a minute before he's holding ibushi just as tight. it almost feels like being reunited all over again. but this time it's only in the quiet of the apartment, only in the comfort of each other. and it feels right.


	6. Chapter 6

kenny sits on his usual spot on the couch, in his usual position, playing his usual game. he begins sitting up and leaning closer into the controller, brows furrowed, knuckles white against the clutched controller. he moves with it as if it helps his character. ibushi always noticed he did that. it was something small, but it always managed to reinforce the overwhelming love he felt for him. and it was no different this time, watching kenny's determined eyes, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.   
when a loud 'GAME OVER' is announced across the screen, kenny tosses the controller to the ground and throws his head in his hands. ibushi can't hold back his laughter, lets it spill from the inside out, fills the room.   
"you're really laughing at a man during a time like this?" kenny feigns being hurt. ibushi rolls his eyes, lets a lazy smile form on his lips.   
"not at a man, just at you." he shrugs, stretches out on the couch.   
the middle cushion barrier is breached as he straightens his legs across it, socked feet barely touching kenny's thigh. silence falls upon them again, but not without small grins on each of their faces. kenny picks up the controller, sighs a very defeated sigh, and restarts whatever level he was on.   
ibushi's not sure how many tries it takes kenny to beat that part of the game, because somewhere along the way he fell asleep. he wakes up on his own, eyes tired and mouth dry. on the other end of the couch, kenny's elbow is on the arm of the couch, his head resting in his palm. the faint glow of the tv illuminates his face. ibushi sees the controller still held in kenny's other hand. he smiles to himself at the sight. he almost feels bad that he fell asleep in what was considered kenny's bed. he shifts, stretches, sits up. he rubs the tired out of his eyes and stands, nudging kenny awake. he forces one eye open to look up at ibushi.   
"lay down." he tells him, and kenny does, legs sprawling down the rest of the couch. ibushi takes the blanket draped across the back of the couch and lays it across him. he stands back up, begins to walk to his own room.   
"goodnight," he hears kenny call from behind him.   
"goodnight." he repeats, and enters his room.   
he leaves the door open this time.


	7. Chapter 7

distant thunder kenny heard earlier had suddenly crept in closer, swallowed the place whole. the rain came heavy. kenny sits on the couch, watches from the window. the trees sway in the wind almost violently.  
"it's getting pretty bad out there." ibushi nods to the scene outside, throws himself onto the couch.   
"yeah, what're the chances of the power going out?" kenny looks away from the window.   
as if waiting for a cue, the lights in the room shut off. the soft gray of the sky only barely let kenny see ibushi's face, the surprise in his eyes, the crooked teeth behind parted lips.   
"there's your answer." ibushi responds, amused at the coincidence.   
"i guess so." kenny shrugs, slips a smile.  
he feels like he should say something, shouldn't let the conversation end there. nothing he says in his head sounds good enough. instead, he lets his hand rest lightly over ibushi's. under the touch, ibushi turns his hand over, laces his fingers through kenny's. and they stay like that. if it weren't for the thunder outside, kenny was sure they would both be able to hear his heart threatening to beat out of his chest. ibushi suddenly pulls his hand away.   
"i should go find candles, i have a feeling we won't have power any time soon." he explains.   
kenny blinks, retracts his hand from where it was. "right."   
and ibushi does just that, stumbling out his room, clutching candles to his chest. he lets them fall to the coffee table, some rolling away and crashing to the floor. he winces, but sighs in relief when none of the glass shatters. kenny reaches for one as ibushi does, their heads knocking together clumsily. ibushi laughs, loud and genuine.   
"sorry." he says in between breaths. kenny only rolls his eyes, grabbing ibushi by his arm and pulling him back onto the couch.   
he pulls out a lighter, leans toward the abundance of candles, and lights them. he sinks back into the couch, leg almost overlapping kenny's. he thinks he's too close, almost pulls away, but kenny reassures him by wrapping an arm around his shoulders. he feels as if he's melting into the sudden warmth, letting his head fall limply onto the other man's shoulder. it's silent, comfortable. he watches the flames flicker, lets his mind wander. it feels normal.


	8. Chapter 8

it's become a common reoccurrence for ibushi to end up joining kenny on the couch at night. kenny would play a video game, or start a new show, and somehow, they spent the whole night sitting next to each other on the couch, both of them falling asleep at some point without realizing until the next morning.  
kenny shifts slightly, turning his head as he wakes up. ibushi twists at the sudden movement next to him. their noses bump together slightly. kenny stops dead in his tracks, but ibushi only yawns, makes himself comfortable again. he leans further into kenny's figure, head nuzzling into the crook of his neck. he lets their legs hanging off the couch tangle together. kenny lets go of the breath he didn't know he was holding, lets himself get comfortable, wraps his arm around ibushi and pulls him closer.   
they both wake up again a few hours later, the sun hanging high and shining bright through the windows. ibushi lifts his head, tired eyes meeting kenny's. they're so close kenny can feel the breath leaving ibushi's mouth. he glances down to his slightly parted lips, looks back up to his eyes. the distance slowly closes between them, and ibushi stops right before their lips meet, a silent 'is this okay?' being asked. kenny closes the gap and brushes his lips over ibushi's to answer the question. they drift apart only for a moment before kenny cups ibushi's face in his hands and pulls him forward, kisses him again just as softly. ibushi pulls back, ghosting his fingers over his lips, lets a smile form.   
"i missed that."   
"i did too."


End file.
